Do you remember the children’s tale of Aladdin? Wandering
the streets of Baghdad, Aladdin heard a street vendor crying out, “New lamps
for old! New lamps for old!” Aladdin was mystified and curious; why would the
vendor want to exchange something new for something old? Something shiny and
clean for something worn out and dented and covered with scratches?
Today’s reading from Isaiah might make us scratch our heads like
Aladdin: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed
me; he has sent me to… comfort all who mourn in Zion – to give them a garland
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise
instead of a faint spirit.”
Well, you don’t need an MBA from Harvard to know that there
is something wrong with God’s business sense. God sends Isaiah out like an
Amway representative, but instead of buying low and selling high, Isaiah is to
trade garlands for ashes, gladness for mourning, the “mantle of praise instead
of a faint spirit.”
In other words, new lamps for old.
So, you would think that the people who hear Isaiah’s
message would come pouring into the marketplace: the oppressed and
brokenhearted, prisoners and those who mourn. Yet, look around you. This is a
once in a lifetime, never to be repeated offer, yet very few are taking
advantage of it.
God is eager to exchange new lamps for old, divine riches
for human poverty, but very few want to accept God’s offer.
But if something is wrong with God’s business sense,
something is even more wrong with ours. We clutch at our griefs and sorrows
even though God is eager to give us “gladness instead of mourning.”
Irish poet William Butler Yeats coined the phrase, “the rag
and bone shop of the heart.” How appropriate is that? When I look at my heart,
I see grudges, old hurts, memories of past failures, insults long forgotten by
the one who insulted me but which I’ve never forgotten, much less forgiven.
What do you see when you look in your heart?
God is ready to exchange new lamps for old, divine treasure
for our trash. Yet we hoard petty grievances and old wounds, the real or
imagined insults of years long ago.
C.S. Lewis once observed, “Our Lord finds our desires not
too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with
drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant
child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine
what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily
pleased.”
“New lamps for old” is the theme of the Christian faith from
beginning to end. At a wedding feast at Cana, Jesus took water and made rich,
sweet wine. He took lameness and gave back two strong legs. He took blindness
and gave back the light of day. And finally, upon the cross, Jesus took death
itself and gave back life abundant and everlasting.
Ashes, mourning, faith spirits… God takes our trash and
returns treasure; God takes these hard, old hearts of ours and gives them back
to us new and improved.
In the words of a favorite Christmas carol:
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part:
Yet what I can I give him: give my heart.
The heart is all God asks, but the heart is everything. For
in it are the ashes of dashed hopes, the grief that must come to every human
being, and the spirit that is faint from a thousand disappointments.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has sent me to
proclaim good news to the poor.” God gave Isaiah good news to proclaim to those
who taste the ashes of defeat and whose faint spirits struggle to get out of
bed in the morning.
In other words, God gave Isaiah good news to proclaim to
people just like you and me.
In Advent we anticipate once more the coming among us of
this strange God who not only offers us new lamps for old but who chooses to
dwell among those who do not have any way of purchasing the merchandise God is
offering.
The One who read Isaiah’s words to a synagogue in Nazareth
still proclaims good news to the poor whenever the Bible is read, and whenever
we share bread and wine in his name, he fills the hungry with good things.
